(Updated March 18, 2024) Just over a week ago, Premier Tim Houston told reporters in Halifax that he would not be in the legislature on March 18 when it re-opened after March break because he would be in Hamburg, Germany, to attend a hydrogen conference.
As the CBC’s Michael Gorman reported at the time, Houston said he’d been invited by the federal Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Jonathan Wilkinson, to accompany him to the conference. Gorman reported that Houston would be meeting with industry representatives in Germany, and speaking at the conference.
Houston told reporters he and Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey would both be accompanying Wilkinson to Hamburg, noting that hydrogen development could “change our entire economy in this province.”
Two companies — EverWind Fuels and Bear Head Energy — have plans to build plants in Point Tupper in Cape Breton to produce “green hydrogen” and convert it to “green ammonia,” primarily for export, and to develop large wind farms in Nova Scotia to power that production.
Houston is a hydrogen enthusiast. In December 2023, his Progressive Conservative government launched its “Green Hydrogen Action Plan,” with lots of lofty rhetoric about Nova Scotia becoming a “world leader” in green hydrogen production.
The premier said he had accepted Wilkinson’s invitation to attend the conference as a “Team Canada” effort because he thought it “important that we represent Nova Scotia at the hydrogen conference, for sure.”
Well, it appears Houston doesn’t think the conference is all that important after all.
It seems he’s no longer attending the March 18 “Canada-Germany Hydrogen and Ammonia Producer-Offtaker Conference.”
“Premiers Houston and Furey are no longer attending,” wrote Carolyn Svonkin, press secretary to Wilkinson, in an email to the Halifax Examiner. “The Minister will be joined by a delegation of representatives from around 10 Canadian companies.”
The Examiner has sent two emails to Catherine Klimek, press secretary for Premier Houston, asking for confirmation that he has changed his mind about attending, and if so why.
So far, there has been no reply.
Related: Nova Scotia goes all in on ‘green’ hydrogen but at what cost?
Related: Hydrogen hype: ‘History will have a good laugh’ at us. A Q and A with Michael Liebreich.
Conference mostly behind closed doors
On Thursday, March 14, the Hamburg Senate that is hosting the conference, issued English and German versions of the program.
The English version shows the speakers at the opening of the conference on the morning of March 18. Among them are Germany’s Vice Chancellor and Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck, Jonathan Wilkinson, Tim Houston, and Canada’s ambassador to Germany, John Horgan, former premier of British Columbia.
Most of the sessions are closed to the public and the media. “Canadian hydrogen and ammonia producers” will have private space to meet with “German offtakers” in “networking and matchmaking” sessions in the morning. In the afternoon, ministers will meet with “CEOs, government and finance” in “roundtable sessions.”
The German program offers only minimally more information, saying:
The aim of the conference is to offer project developers from Canada and potential dealers and buyers from Germany the opportunity to network and discuss possible business collaborations, as well as to develop solutions for concluding purchase contracts. The high-ranking Canadian delegation, which includes the Premier of Nova Scotia, will meet numerous potential buyers and stakeholders for hydrogen from renewable energies in Hamburg.
‘Clean’ or ‘green’ hydrogen?
Svonkin told the Examiner that the purpose of Canada’s energy minister’s visit to the conference is to:
…continue to deliver on the ambitious commitments made under the Canada-Germany Hydrogen Alliance signed by Minister Wilkinson and German Vice Chancellor Habeck in Stephenville, NL [Newfoundland] in August 2022. This includes the shared objectives of catalyzing investments in hydrogen projects, supporting the development of secure hydrogen supply chains, establishing a Canada-Germany supply corridor, and exporting clean Canadian hydrogen by 2025. [emphasis added]
“Clean” hydrogen is a term favoured by industry, because it includes hydrogen produced using natural gas — more accurately “fossil gas” — which is the norm in Alberta, Canada’s largest hydrogen producer.
Hydrogen is a colourless gas, but the way it is produced determines the colour assigned to it. Hydrogen produced using natural gas is described as “grey,” and “blue” if carbon capture and storage is involved. Both involve elevated greenhouse gas emissions, so neither is green nor clean.
“Green” hydrogen has to be produced using 100% renewable energy.
The word “green” does not show up in the Hamburg conference title or program,
Svonkin also said that Wilkinson and Habeck “will be making an exciting announcement on Monday.”
She noted that all industry representatives would be paying their own way to Hamburg, but didn’t say who those representatives would be.
Some of Atlantic Canada’s hydrogen players
Among the proponents of green hydrogen and ammonia production for export from Atlantic Canada are a handful of companies and people who haven’t exactly built their business careers or fortunes as climate champions.
One of proponents is Nova Scotia billionaire John Risley, chair of World Energy GH2. World Energy’s proposed Project Nujio’qonik involves two massive wind facilities and a hydrogen plant near Stephenville, on Newfoundland’s west coast, which it calls “a world-class location.” A site for a third wind facility is still to be determined.
Local opposition to the World Energy wind projects has been growing.
On February 28, Export Development Canada gave World Energy GH2 $128 million in financing for its Nujio’qonik project.
Another would-be green hydrogen producer in Newfoundland and Labrador is Ravi Sood, who heads Exploits Valley Renewable Energy Corporation (EVREC), a subsidiary of Abraxas Power. EVREC plans about 300 wind turbines in the Exploits Valley in central Newfoundland, with a shipping hub on the Bay of Botwood on the coast, about 90 kilometres west of Gander.
Sood, a Canadian who calls himself an “entrepreneur and investor,” lives in Hong Kong. He has founded several international businesses, including a gold mining company in South Africa. In 2008, Sood set up and ran Feronia Inc., which received financing from four European development banks.
Cayman Islands-registered Feronia was later accused of paying “workers as little as $1 per day to toil on some of Africa’s largest palm oil plantations in the impoverished Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).” A Human Rights Watch report found that Feronia and its subsidiary in Congo exposed workers to dangerous pesticides, dumped untreated industrial waste into local waterways, and engaged in “abusive employment practices that result in extreme poverty wages.”
In August 2023, the Newfoundland and Labrador government chose Sood’s company EVREC as one of four proponents to advance “wind-hydrogen” in the province.
Another green hydrogen proponent is Australian national and former private equity manager Trent Vichie, now resident in New York, who owns EverWind Fuels. EverWind is a subsidiary of EverWind Fuels Holdings LLC, Everwind Fuels LLC and Toronto Diamond Laredo LLC, which all share the same Greenwich Avenue address in New York.
EverWind has proposed a “2–3 GW” (gigawatt) wind facility on the Burin Peninsula to produce green hydrogen and ammonia on Newfoundland’s south coast.
Two hydrogen players in NS
As the Examiner has reported in depth, EverWind is also proposing to build a proposed hydrogen and ammonia plant in Point Tupper, Nova Scotia, where it now owns a fossil fuel storage facility. EverWind aims to power the production of the hydrogen and the ammonia for export with four large wind projects in Nova Scotia, including one with 300 or more wind turbines in Guysborough County.
Related: Feds offer EverWind $125 million despite many unanswered questions about ‘green hydrogen’ project
In November 2023, Export Development Canada announced that it had given EverWind $125 million in financing for its Nova Scotia hydrogen project. But as the Examiner noted later, that was $125 million U.S. dollars so the actual credit accorded to EverWind was closer to $166 million Canadian.
EverWind has three registered lobbyists active in Ottawa, including its Chief Financial Officer and Chief Strategy officer, Matthew Tinari. In February alone, Tinari met with three federal cabinet ministers:
- Mary Ng, Minister of Export Promotion, International Trade and Economic Development Global Affairs Canada
- Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Natural Resources Canada
- Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance
EverWind also has four active lobbyists working the corridors of power in Nova Scotia, including its founder and CEO Trent Vichie.
The second major hydrogen actor in Nova Scotia is Bear Head Energy, owned by Texas-based Buckeye Partners, “one of the largest independent liquid petroleum products pipeline operators in the U.S.” Buckeye in turn is owned by the Australian private equity firm, IFM Investors.
Bear Head is planning a hydrogen production facility in Point Tupper, and powering that plant with electricity from wind projects it would construct in Pictou and Guysborough Counties.
Related: Another would-be ‘green’ hydrogen and ammonia producer in Nova Scotia enters the wind energy fray
EverWind and Bear Head seek NS Crown land
Both EverWind and Bear Head have applied for Crown leases in Nova Scotia, but none has yet been issued, according to Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources and Renewables spokesperson Patricia Jreige.
In an email, Jreige told the Examiner:
EverWind applied for Crown land leases in Guysborough County, Hants County, and Colchester County. Bear Head applied for Crown land leases in Guysborough county and Pictou county.
We’ve done our initial reviews. Both companies are now doing preliminary investigations to inform their project planning. Various steps will have to be completed before a lease can be issued, such as Crown lands research, integrated resource management reviews for things like old growth forest, species at risk etc., survey work, appraisals, consultation with the Mi’kmaw of Nova Scotia, satisfying any required insurance conditions, and Ministerial approvals. This is in addition to any required approval processes from other approvers, such as environmental assessments. We can’t say when this work might be completed.
‘Subsidy harvesting’
It remains to be seen what the “exciting announcement” is that Energy and Natural Resources Canada told the Examiner will be coming at the March 18 Hamburg conference.
At this point, none of the would-be green hydrogen producers in Atlantic Canada has a secured market for their hydrogen, which would be converted to ammonia for exporting.
EverWind has only memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with two German energy companies, E.On and Uniper, for the potential “offtake” of up to a million tonnes of green ammonia a year from the production facilities it plans for its Point Tupper site.
MOUs are not binding agreements.
Without assured markets for their green hydrogen / ammonia, none of these would-be producers in Atlantic Canada is likely to attract the massive amounts of financing they would need for the wind facilities and production plants.
At the moment, the federal government is providing some financing — close to $300 million — for two of the projects, but that is a far cry from what is needed. Federal tax incentives and credits would count for many more hundreds of millions of dollars for each of the hydrogen projects, as the Examiner reported here.
Julie Levin, associate director for national climate at Environmental Defence Canada, has said to the Examiner that these hydrogen ventures are “subsidy harvesting projects.”
So there is much at stake on Monday at the hydrogen conference in Hamburg, which will bring together potential hydrogen / ammonia buyers, Canadian hydrogen producers, financiers, and high-level German and Canadian politicians.
Will the Canadian and German governments dole out more public money for these green hydrogen and ammonia projects, or will some private financing appear? Will any German companies sign contracts to purchase green ammonia from Atlantic Canada?
The Examiner will be watching closely, and will report on the outcome after the conference.
Update March 18, 2024. The Examiner has obtained an advance German copy of the MOU being signed today at the conference by Ministers Wilkinson and Habeck. It is between Natural Resources Canada and Germany’s Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action.
The MOU is vague but suggests there may be more big subsidies coming for “green” hydrogen production, stating that the participants – the Canadian and German ministries – “intend to work together on the concept of a common hydrogen global financing window (“H2Global Window”) to address the price premium (“green premium”) of Canadian-produced green hydrogen and its derivatives over a 10-year period.” The derivative would likely be ammonia, as it is not practical or feasible to transport hydrogen.
The MOU also states that, “Participants will leverage respective domestic production and demand incentives to maximize the success of H2Global with the long-term goal of establishing robust trade across a transatlantic hydrogen corridor.”
Again, hinting at more big subsidies.
The MOU also hints of some desperation among those proposing green hydrogen projects in Canada about the lack of any firm contracts for the purchase of the hydrogen they say they will produce:
The participants are aware of the urgency with which applicants must conclude commercial offtake contracts and strive to launch tenders that match supply and demand as early as possible, preferably before the end of 2024, subject to the approvals from the relevant authorities in a timely manner present.
And, it notes, “This Memorandum of Understanding is subject to confirmation of funding approval by the participants, which would be in equal shares.”
The MOU is not legally binding, so it is not as CBC calls it, a “trade deal.”
The latest in a long list of boondoggles that have all been hyped as the latest and greatest transformer / savior of the NS economy.
“Subsidy harvesting projects”. That is the most appropriate terminology for these initiatives.